VK9ZM and VK9ZW 1989 |
Scenes from the Mellish Reef and Willis Island Dxpedition |
By Victor Carnuccio, KD2HE There were seven of us who met in Cairns, Austalia, on January 1, 1989. The members of the expedition were Joe Adams, VE3CPU; Ian Cambell, VE3IEO; Jim Kosaka, JR1RCQ; Bruce Miller, ZF2KN; Greg Potter, MN2L; Dave Schmocker, KJ9I; and myself. The crew of our boat included the skipper, Ron Brown; Shari Whiteside and engineer Stephen Sheehan. We left Cairns on the M.V. Auriga Bay, which we had chartered on January 2 arriving on Mellish two days later. We returned by way of Willis about three weeks later. Unfortunately, this endeavor wasn't without it's mishaps. Tragically, Stephen Sheehan drowned in a diving accident about a week after our departure from Australia. We did continue and made about 45,000 QSO's during our stays. I operated on RTTY for about an hour daily, putting the mode on Mellish for the first time. |
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